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| Ro Khanna (right) and Thomas Massie (Axios) |
A Democratic member of the U.S. House has read names from unredacted Epstein files into the public record, with two of the names referring to specific individuals, while the identity of four other men remains unclear. U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) did not provide evidence against any of the men, and he made the revelations in a way that appears to protect him from possible defamation claims.
Politico reports on the latest under the headline "House Dem identifies 'wealthy, powerful men' DOJ redacted in Epstein files; Rep. Ro Khanna read out the names of six individuals on the House floor, where they now will be entered into the Congressional Record." Reporter Hailey Fuchs writes:
Rep. Ro Khanna took to the House floor Tuesday and read aloud the names of six “wealthy, powerful men” whose names were originally redacted in the Jeffrey Epstein files.
It comes after Khanna (D-Calif.) and Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) emerged from reviewing unredacted materials related to the late convicted sex offender and demanded that the Justice Department reveal these individuals’ identities to the public if their redactions did not fall under the terms established by Congress.
The lawmakers threatened to expose the men if DOJ did not cooperate, taking advantage of the Constitution’s Speech or Debate Clause that under certain circumstances can shield members of Congress from litigation. DOJ ultimately complied with some of their requests, Massie announced in social media posts Tuesday morning.
Khanna, however, wasn’t satisfied to stop there.
“Why did it take Thomas Massie and me going to the Justice Department to get these six men’s identities to become public?” he asked from the House floor. “And if we found six men that they were hiding in two hours, imagine how many men they are covering up for in those 3 million files.”
As co-sponsor of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which President Donald Trump signed into law last November, Khanna likely knows the provisions of the law better than most anyone in Washington, D.C. And he is clearly displeased that the Trump DOJ did not follow the law's requirements regarding redactions. Fuchs writes:
Khanna accused the Trump administration of continuing to violate the law he and Massie helped shepherd through Congress in November that placed limits on DOJ redactions of the documents.
It’s not immediately clear who some of the individuals are, but Khanna identified Leslie Wexner as the billionaire former owner of Victoria’s Secret and other retail companies, and Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem as the chief executive officer of DP World.
“The Assistant U.S. Attorney told Mr. Wexner’s legal counsel in 2019 that Mr. Wexner was being viewed as source of information about Epstein and was not a target in any respect,” a legal representative for Wexner said in a statement. “Mr. Wexner cooperated fully by providing background information on Epstein and was never contacted again.”
It’s not immediately clear who some of the individuals are, but Khanna identified Leslie Wexner as the billionaire former owner of Victoria’s Secret and other retail companies, and Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem as the chief executive officer of DP World.
“The Assistant U.S. Attorney told Mr. Wexner’s legal counsel in 2019 that Mr. Wexner was being viewed as source of information about Epstein and was not a target in any respect,” a legal representative for Wexner said in a statement. “Mr. Wexner cooperated fully by providing background information on Epstein and was never contacted again.”
A representative for bin Sulayem did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Other names include Salvatore Nuara, Zurab Mikeladze, Leonic Leonov, and Nicola Caputo, who could not be reached for comment.
Khanna did not provide evidence of wrongdoing against any of them.
Massie provided background regarding the inclusion of Wexner and Sulayem in the files, Fuchs reports:
Massie in a social media post Tuesday afternoon, said that while “Appearing in the Epstein files does not prove guilt ... Leslie Wexner was designated as a co-conspirator of Epstein for ‘child sex trafficking’ in a 2019 FBI document, and the Sultan’s email address was used to send correspondence about the ‘torture video.’ Four other men and their pictures appear in a list with Epstein, Maxwell, two known victims, and several women.”
Khanna and Massie were not alone in voicing their displeasure about the DOJ's handling of the Epstein files. U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) also spoke out, per an article at Axios under the headline "What Jamie Raskin saw in the unredacted Epstein files." Of particular interest is what Raskin discovered about Trump's name in the files. Andrew Solender reports:
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) told Axios in an interview Tuesday that when he searched President Trump's name in the unredacted Epstein files the previous day, it came up "more than a million times."
Why it matters: At least one of the files Raskin found appears to contradict what Trump has publicly claimed about his association with Jeffrey Epstein, according to the House Judiciary Committee ranking member.
- That document is a 2009 email exchange between Epstein and his associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, in which Epstein recounted his lawyers' account of a phone call with Trump, as Raskin previously told reporters.
- "Trump is paraphrased and quoted as saying, 'No, Jeffrey Epstein was not a member of Mar-a-Lago, but he was a guest at Mar-a-Lago, and no, we never asked him to leave,'" Raskin said in an interview at the Capitol.
The other side: Trump has denied all wrongdoing in the Epstein matter, and he's maintained that he kicked Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago for poaching spa workers.
Axios provides more details about the Trump-Epstein relationship, which seems to keep changing in Trump's often sketchy memory:
- The former Palm Beach chief of police testified to the FBI in 2019 that following Epstein's arrest in the early 2000s, Trump claimed he threw Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago, the Epstein files show.
- Trump reportedly also told the then-police chief that "everyone has known he's been doing this" and that Maxwell is "evil and to focus on her."
Zoom in: Asked for comment, the White House pointed to three posts on X from Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche pushing back on Rep. Thomas Massie's (R-Ky.) claims about the unredacted files.
- Blanche accused Massie of sensationalizing his findings, saying for example that while the name of Les Wexner was redacted in a portion of the files naming him an Epstein co-conspirator, he "already appears in the files thousands of times."
- "DOJ is hiding nothing," he said in his posts. "Be honest, and stop grandstanding."
Driving the news: Following allegations of improper redactions in the more than 3 million files it released on Epstein, the Justice Department has begun giving members of Congress access to the unredacted files.
Raskin noted that it's an impossible task for lawmakers to review the huge trove of files in the time frame allowed:
What they're saying: But it's about more than one email, Raskin stressed, exclaiming that the Mar-a-Lago exchange is "just one memo out of 3 million!"
- "The idea that we could get through a meaningful fraction of them is just ridiculous," he said.
- "I mean, there's tons of redacted stuff. ... And [Trump's] name, I think I put his name, and it appears more than a million times. So it's all over the place."
- Following publication of this story, Raskin clarified in a statement to Axios, "In the database, I typed in the words 'Trump,' 'Donald or Don' and it came up with more than a million results."
- "I obviously didn't have the time to review each one, and I obviously cannot guarantee that every mention of a Donald is Donald Trump as opposed to some other Donald."
- Raskin said the Mar-a-Lago exchange was "one of the first documents I came across."
- He added that "the DOJ database review tool given to Members is confusing, unreliable, and clunky."
The bottom line: "To me, this whole rollout of saying that members can come from nine to five to sit at those four computers, is just part of the cover-up," Raskin asserted.
- The 3 million documents that the administration has not publicly released "are the ones I'd like to see," he said.
- "The administration says that these are duplicative. Well go ahead and release them then! If they're duplicative, what's the problem? We'll be the judge of that."
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